Theft of Mobile Telephones

Question

15:11:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress is being made in addressing the theft of mobile telephones.

Tackling mobile phone theft is a priority for this Government. The Home Secretary has brought together law enforcement agencies and the mobile phone industry to see what can be done to break the business model of mobile phone thieves, and the Government have included measures in the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill. The Home Office will ensure that all parties work together so that technical innovations, policing and government efforts reduce this crime.

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. It appears that the resale value of a stolen mobile phone is in the order of £400, depending on the model stolen. Clearly, something is not working if that resale market is so great. First, can my noble friend indicate whether arrangements have been made with mobile phone operators and companies to ensure that, once a mobile phone is identified as stolen, not just the account but the phone itself can be locked, using the IMEI number? Secondly, what does he think the lessons are for other local authorities of the initiative taken by the Labour Westminster City Council, reversing the policy of its Conservative predecessors, of increasing by 100 the number of CCTV cameras monitoring central London, which it has just announced?

I certainly congratulate Westminster City Council on its initiative on CCTV funding and the additional cameras in place. CCTV provides a deterrent and critical evidence in the event of criminal acts such as mobile phone theft. On the first point, when the Home Secretary met mobile phone companies recently, she charged them with reporting back on what measures can be taken. Phone companies such as Apple, Google and others are currently looking at what they can do to ensure that mobile phones are not used again and can be blocked, or that their parts are not compatible for the future. The key issue, which we are working with mobile phone companies on, is to determine whether phones that are broken up and used for parts are resold in the United Kingdom or, as is increasingly the case, are sold to a number of foreign countries, where they are used with impunity. We have set mobile phone companies the task of looking at how we can work together to tackle all those issues.

My Lords, a few Saturdays ago I took Lady Evans to theatreland. Between Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square, she had her mobile phone stolen. We very quickly saw that she did not have her phone and managed to track it on an app called Find My iPhone. I tracked Lady Evans’s phone as it disappeared down Whitehall, through the Embankment, over Westminster Bridge and ended up at a premises in Brixton. We notified the police and were given a police incident report number. When we inquired about getting the phone back, they said—very much as the Minister just said—that it will be have probably been broken up and exported, and that the organised crime groups that take these mobile phones are very difficult to prosecute. Can the Minister, notwithstanding Labour-run Westminster City Council, track these vehicles that go down over Westminster Bridge? It would be very easy to ascertain them. Would it also be possible to look into what the police are saying to members of the public, that this is very difficult to stop?

First, I am very extremely sorry for that incident. It is an awful, threatening crime that worries people, and which can also access personal data, so it needs to be reduced and stopped wherever possible. One of the measures that we have in the Crime and Policing Bill, which was introduced into the House of Commons recently, ensures that police can take action quickly and speedily on the very point the noble Lord mentions. At the moment, if a phone is tracked to a property, let us say, in south London, a warrant has to be issued for the police to enter that property. The proposals in the Crime and Policing Bill will ensure that, on the authority of an inspector, the police can enter those premises immediately. So in the case that the noble Lord mentions of his own family, if that were reported, a crime number logged and the phone tracked to a property in Lambeth, the inspector in Lambeth could immediately authorise a police visit and potentially either recovery or arrest. I hope the Opposition will support that when it comes before this House.

My Lords, mobile phone thefts are almost out of control and are taking up a huge amount of police resources, but these could be dramatically reduced if smartphones were fitted with advanced device locking technology. This technology—unlike kill-switch technology, which is used by some of the companies that the Minister has mentioned—is integrated at the operating level, resistant to factory resets and, crucially, is activated automatically without user setup, which is a major breakthrough. Will the Government consider mandating its implementation in all new smartphones?

The noble Baroness makes a very interesting suggestion. As I have already said, we are working with mobile phone companies to look at what is in the interests of preventing crime, while at the same time ensuring that users and consumers can use their phones in an appropriate way. I will look at that suggestion. We have a further meeting with the phone companies in around three months to report back on what action they have taken to date in relation to those issues, and we will certainly examine that for her.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, is right, that design is the way to prevent the thing, once stolen, being valuable, so that there is therefore no point in stealing it. This morning, I was out with the excellent cycling enforcement team in the City of London, who were enforcing cycling legislation. More importantly, they told me about having recently arrested a mobile phone thief who had 24 phones with him. Given that the thieves are getting rid of them very quickly, either abroad or because they do not want to be caught with them, I wonder whether the statistics that show how many phones are getting stolen are accurate. In the City, there are probably two phones stolen per day, according to the crime stats. This is one indication—but there are many—that the crime stats are not representative, because people are not reporting it, perhaps because they are not sure they are going to get a reaction from the cops, but sometimes because they just do not need to. However, how much of this crime is out there, and that we are not able to stop it, is a worry.

One of the first things that anybody who is a victim of crime should do is report that crime, because we cannot act unless we know the level of crime and the impact of it in the first place. That is important. The noble Lord is also right that designing out the potential for this activity in the building of resilient phones that cannot be used post crime is the best way forward. There have been innovations by a number of phone companies on that, but certainly there is more that can be done. We want to help to support CCTV, and to take measures such as the incident warrant and on neighbourhood policing. In the long term, we will work with companies to ensure that we design out crime, and we will look at the market for broken-up, exported or resold phones in the United Kingdom. That intelligence-led policing will help to have a great impact on the current 146,000 thefts from a person last year, up 22%, of which mobile phone thefts were approximately half that figure.

Is there not a lesson to be learned from what the Israeli intelligence service did with pagers? I am not suggesting that we should do that, but the principle is most appropriate. I cannot understand why the companies producing mobiles are not prepared to move quickly so that when their owners lose them they can disable them. That will stop the stealers.

I note what my noble friend thinks about the Israeli example, but if that happened, it might mean that half of south London did not have access to a phone on any given day. The key thing is that I, and the Government, welcome innovation in mobile phone protection. The mobile phone companies are looking into that, and we have to work with them in tandem. The idea of a kill switch or a stop in any way, shape or form is certainly welcome, but it is in technology that that is developed. It is in everybody’s interests, including those of the mobile phone companies, to develop that technology speedily.

My Lords, we have heard a lot about technological solutions and issues after the theft, but is there not a more analogue issue about the prevention of theft? Of course it can happen to any of us, but what focus are the Government putting on messaging and communications, perhaps even in schools, about simple tips on how to avoid mobile phone theft where possible, by being more careful about when and where phones are used?

That is a very salient point. I have heard this from my own family, who have said to me, “Don’t walk down the street in London with your phone out, Dad”. To be honest, I had never thought about that—but I do now. That level of public awareness is extremely important. But, actually, citizens should be able to walk down the street on their phone, so we need to tackle the perpetrators. That means people riding fast on a bike—CCTV can help with that —and it means tracking the phone when it has been stolen, in which the measures mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, can help. It also means giving people proper penalties when they are caught—and in the first part of this year the Metropolitan Police has made 200 arrests and recovered 1,000 phones, by focusing on street-level policing, in which the extra 13,000 neighbourhood police officers that we are funding over the next three or four years will certainly assist.